A fulfillment provider in Acenda is the service that actually ships your marketplace orders — a 3PL like ShipHero or ShipStation, or a sales channel handling its own fulfillment, such as Shopify. You can connect one or more fulfillment providers in Acenda and assign each one to the sales channels and warehouses it should fulfill for.

Step 1: Add a fulfillment provider

Click CHANNELS > Integrations in the sidebar.
Click + New in the Fulfillment Providers section.
Select your fulfillment provider from the list and click + Add.
Click Edit next to the new integration to open its settings.

Note: If you ship orders yourself without a 3PL, choose Self Fulfillment from this list. It has no settings to fill in. See How to set up a Self Fulfillment warehouse.

Step 2: Configure the integration

Every fulfillment provider has a few settings in common, organized under these tabs:

General: the switch to enable the integration, and a name to tell it apart if you connect more than one instance of the same provider.
Notifications: one or more email addresses (press Enter after each one) to receive alerts about problems such as invalid shipping addresses, bad tracking numbers, or orders and fulfillments that can't flow through.
Authorization: the API Key and API Secret you generate in your fulfillment provider's own admin after adding Acenda as a partner. Some providers connect by Consent instead — for those, this tab walks you through authorizing Acenda directly.

Further down, you'll typically also see the Sales Channel ID(s) and Warehouse ID(s) this provider should handle. Depending on the provider, you may also see some of these settings (the exact labels can vary slightly):

Actions: the timing of shipment, ship advice and order pushes to and pulls from the provider. Acenda recommends leaving these on their defaults.
Store ID: optional. Only fill it in if you have more than one store inside the same provider account.
Order Number Assignment: which order number Acenda sends the provider: the external ID (the full sales channel order number), the purchase order ID (the shorter sales channel order number), or the Acenda order number. Acenda recommends the external ID.
Store Information: your store name in the provider.
Customer Configuration: turn this on to create customer records from your orders. Choose Create Customer From Marketplace Name to include the marketplace name, or Create Customer From Order Customer to record only the customer's details.

Finding your IDs: The Sales Channel ID is shown at the top of that sales channel's own Edit page (CHANNELS > Integrations, then Edit). The Warehouse ID is shown in the ID column on the Warehouses page.

When finished, click Save.

Provider-specific settings: Shopify Fulfillment

If you're connecting Shopify as a fulfillment provider (rather than as a sales channel), two extra sections apply only to Shopify:

Order Configuration: choose decrement_obeying_policy to stop an order from reaching Shopify when an item shows zero inventory, or decrement_ignoring_policy / bypass to let it through regardless (inventory can then show a negative quantity in Shopify).
Functionality Control: toggle whether Acenda pulls inventory and pricing from Shopify.

For the rest of the Shopify connection, see How to connect Shopify as a fulfillment provider.

Step 3: Assign provider warehouses to a sales channel

In the sidebar, under CHANNELS, click Integrations.
Click Edit next to the sales channel.
Open the Settings tab and scroll down to Warehouse Details.
Click + Add Warehouse Detail and enter the Channel Warehouse and the matching Acenda Warehouse. Repeat for every warehouse this channel should pull from.
In Routing Modes, set how Acenda chooses a warehouse for this channel's orders. Acenda works through the modes as a fallback chain:
1. Ship Complete: use a single warehouse that can fill the whole order by itself. If more than one warehouse can ship the whole order, Acenda picks the one closest to the customer; priority order applies only when no single warehouse can.
2. Priority / Proximity: if no one warehouse can ship complete, fall back to the order you set in Warehouse Details, or to the warehouse closest to the recipient.
3. Default: the final fallback when none of the above resolve a warehouse.
Click Save.

Important: Routing Mode only decides which of your mapped warehouses ships an order on this channel — it doesn't affect which items are listed there. For the rest of the channel setup, see How to connect a sales channel to Acenda.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

Why does the integration show red or unhealthy? For ShipStation, this is almost always an expired API key. See How to generate ShipStation API keys for how to generate a new one.
Why aren't orders shipping from the warehouse I expected? Check the order of your Warehouse Details mappings and your Routing Mode — Acenda works through them in that order, not by which warehouse happens to have the most stock.
Where do I find a Sales Channel ID or Warehouse ID? The Sales Channel ID is at the top of the sales channel's Edit page; the Warehouse ID is in the ID column on the Warehouses page.
Can I ship orders myself, without a 3PL? Add Self Fulfillment from the Fulfillment Providers list. It has no settings to fill in. See How to set up a Self Fulfillment warehouse.

Still stuck? Contact Acenda Support and tell Acenda support which fulfillment provider and sales channel are involved.

Keywords

fulfillment provider, fulfilment provider, 3PL, third-party logistics, fulfillment software, WMS, warehouse management system, add fulfillment provider, new fulfillment provider, fulfillment integration, shipping integration, Self Fulfillment, self-fulfill, Shopify Fulfillment, provider warehouses, assign warehouse to channel, ship from, Store ID, Order Number Assignment, Integrations, ShipStation, ShipHero, Veeqo, decrement_obeying_policy, how to integrate a fulfillment provider, how to connect a 3PL, how to add a fulfillment provider, how to connect a fulfillment provider

How to connect a fulfillment provider